Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer and television entertainment, and more particularly to applications that run on interactive television.
Description of the Related Art
Evolution of the television in recent years has resulted in the television systems becoming a display for a computer. The computer can be a standard computer, such as personal computer, a laptop, a set-top box, video player box, etc. A box, such as a set-top box, or other similar device is provided by a media provider for connecting to the television system so that users are able to access content provided by the media provider and/or download content over the Internet. Using these devices users are able to download and view contents from a wide variety of sources using the applications executing on the box.
Although the boxes and other similar devices provide access to the media on the internet, the amount and type of information accessible for multimedia content provided by content providers are still very limited and static. For instance, when a user watches a live show, such as Oscar ceremony, the user has to rely on commentators/critics to provide the information related to certain events that occur during the ceremony, such as information related to an actor nominated for best actor. Any additional information related to the Oscars ceremony for enriching the user's interactive experience, is not readily available. For instance, it would be wonderful to have additional information related to the particular actor that was nominated for best actor, such as information related to how many times the actor was nominated for the Oscars, how many times the actor won the Oscars, which years he was nominated and which years he won the Oscars, which movies he starred, etc. Such lack of relevant information is also felt with relation to multimedia content that are recorded on a box, such as a digital video recorder, and watched later. Some applications used for recording on a box, also provide additional information related to the multimedia content. However, the information related to the multimedia content are static and stale or are not synchronized with the multimedia content that is being rendered. This may be due to the fact that the information related to the multimedia content is maintained in a separate channel from the multimedia content data.
It is in this context that the embodiments of the invention arise.